Mental age is a concept in relation to intelligence, expressed as the age at which a child is performing intellectually. The mental age of the child that is tested is the same as the average age at which normal children achieve a particular score.
However, a mental age result on an intelligence test does not mean that children function at their "mental age level" in all aspects of life. For instance, a gifted six-year-old child can still in some ways function as a three-year-old child. Mental age was once considered a controversial concept.
Read more about Mental Age: Mental Age and IQ
Famous quotes containing the words mental and/or age:
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)